Reducing radar cross section through absorption metamaterial antenna for concealment and detection applications

Abstract

In this work, the technology of metamaterials (MM) is utilized to build a low radar cross-section (RCS) antenna through absorption MM array for concealment and detection applications. A novel MM unit cell is proposed and designed, and then an array of the proposed MM unit cell is constructed. A patch antenna is designed and implemented with the MM array to construct the whole absorption metamaterial RCS antenna. The designed RCS antenna is tested in two modes, in the transmitting mode, it operates at a specified frequency of 5.8 GHz with high impedance matching, high gain, and high efficiency. In the receiving mode, the antenna can scatter the electromagnetic waves transmitted by other devices at the specified frequency by absorbing them. The proposed antenna is designed, simulated, fabricated, and then tested. The measured results demonstrate that the proposed antenna has an absorption factor of 99 %, efficiency of exceeds 90 %, reflection coefficient of −36.8 dB and high gain of 6.7 dBi at the designated frequency, which much agrees with the simulation data.